Review D-Link Boxee Box

Fully oriented towards Internet TV!
Before all else, we should state that the Boxee Box is primarily oriented towards Internet services and social networks. The screen displays thumbnails of the options available to you, with the results looking very good even on a large screen television (very nice on a 46" screen). When browsing between the menus, the process is very fluid and no lag time is experienced. The "Home" screen groups together the most popular videos of the moment and Television "Shows", while "Watch Later" are videos that you have added to your favourites to watch at a later time.

The easiest way to access the content is to click on the "Apps" service (148 by default) in the same way as you would with iOS or on an Android telephone. If you can’t find the service you are looking for then you can always configure it yourself by clicking on "Repositories". This will allow you to add Twitter, FaceBook and other services. You can also download the management application for your OS. You will notice that the web browser has Bing search options included. If you want to browse the internet, enter the search words into "Search & URL" menu, with it then being possible to move around the page with the directional arrows.

Playing video, slideshows and listening to music
If you want to watch or listen to your content from a USB peripheral, memory card or network location you simply need to browse for them in Files. Everything is clearly laid out in the same location, so there is no chance of getting lost! The supported audio formats are MP3, WAV, WMA, AIF/AIFF, AC3/AAC, OGG, FLAC, Dolby Digital/Dolby true HD and playlists (M3U, PLS, WPL). The compatible video formats are also numerous (FLV/On2 VP6, H.264 AVC, MPEG-1 (Dat/Mpg/Mpeg), MPEG-2 (MPG/MPEG/VOB/TS/TP/ISO/IFO), MPEG-4 (MP4/AVi/MOV), Divx 3/4/5/6 (AVI/MKV), XVID (AVi/MKV) and WMV9.

All of our video samples were recognised including the 12.3 GB MKV stream (Blu-ray rip) including subtitles (SRT, SUB, SSA, SMI, ASS). Picture slideshows using the JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP and TIFF formats are also supported. What is remarkable with the Boxee Box is the fast load times, the instant viewing of multimedia thumbnails and the immediate video stream decoding. All of this is done effortlessly thanks to the Intel Atom CE4100 processor ("CE" stands for Consumer Electronics).